Moe Lane

Grim War was written by Greg Stolze and Ken Hite for the Wild Talents superhero RPG, and it promises to be full of the occult-meets-mutant-meets-Cold-War goodness that I would expect from those two.  I’m a sucker for horror/occult spy stuff, to be honest*; I dunno if I’d run a game using that sort of thing, but then one of the deep, dark secrets of the roleplaying community is that we read this stuff for fun even if we’re not going to do an actual campaign about it.

Moe Lane

*If you are, too: Declare.  Tim Powers.  If you haven’t read it yet, do so if you wish to have a pleasant few days.

…and all I can say is: wow. I didn’t know that I wanted The Nazi Occult (Dark) this badly, before this moment.  I know nothing about the book except the title and author, but that will do. Comes out in June, and can’t wait.

On super-special pre-pre-order edition, mostly because I get the general impression that they could use the pre-pre-orders.  Well, that and the fact that a roleplaying game that features both classic spy paranoia and vampires is going to appeal to me on general principles.

Not a review copy, alas: I don’t have that kind of mojo in the gaming world, more’s the pity.  What I’ve read of it so far is spiffy, though.  Pelgrane Press’s stuff usually is.

It’s Ken Hite’s new roleplaying game setting, and it looks nifty.  Short version: you play a retiree from the Cold War’s Great Game who just found out that you were working for vampires.  Presumably, this bothers you.  Anyway, looks nifty, and Pelgrane Press takes Paypal (which simplifies international ordering immensely).  So I just, you know, now need to fill up Paypal somehow.

Happy Birthday to you (IA! IA! IA!)
Happy Birthday, dear Ken Hite (PURCHASE HIS TOMES, LEST YE BE DRAGGED INTO YE OUTER VOIDE!),
Happy Birthday to youuuu…

Reading Ken’s  GURPS Horror 4e [PDF] now, in fact; just finished GURPS Infinite Worlds: Worlds of Horror.  Good stuff, good stuff.

It’s the latest Delta Green* novel, which got funded via Kickstarter.  The electronic version is supposedly going out today to backers, with the hardcopy being available in about a week or so: I totally missed this one, so I ain’t getting either until they make either available to regular buyers.  Can’t wait: I rarely buy book tie-ins, but my appetite for Mythos stuff is nigh-insatiable.

Above a certain level of quality, of course.  Some of you probably know what I mean already, and the rest of you are fortunate not to.

Moe Lane

PS: Ken Hite’s Cthulhu 101 came in the mail last week.  Damned funny and damned useful: there’s stuff in there that I missed.

PPS: “Philosophy,” a DG story, via The Unspeakable Oath.

*For those unfamiliar with the game: Call of Cthulhu meets secret government anti-Mythos conspiracy.  Made out of Crystalline Awesome with tightly-woven WIN inserts.

I read it and kinda-reviewed Temporary Duty already a bit back, but I figure that Constant Reader Ric Locke won’t mind if I maybe put some more money in his pocket.  Good stuff – classic SF, more or less – and it’s taking advantage of the new electronic model of publishing.  Check it out.

And so we cast the Powder of Ibn Ghazi over Cliffourd the Big Red God (Mini Mythos). Which I just got in the mail, and it was indeed awesome. And squamous!

I do have a couple of kids’ books with which to start things nice and non-Euclidean:

Although those may have been more for me than for my kids. Both worth it, by the way.

Presumably he’s going to be… Ken Hite, essentially. Internet access via Vocalo.

At some point I really should pick up his The Complete Idiot’s Guide to U.S. History, Graphic Illustrated. I don’t actually need it, but I’m a reliable buyer of everything else that he writes.

Yes. Where the Deep Ones Are is precisely what you think that it is.

And this is why Ken Hite has a devoted following, and you should get him to write things for you.

Moe Lane

PS: Obviously, this replaces Juggler of Worlds.

This thought is not mine, but Ken Hite’s. It’s part of his bloody marvelous Tour de Lovecraft, which should be on everybody’s short list of horror-genre analysis books to buy, but the relevant bit is here:

Hence, you can watch Pleasantville as a photographic negative of “The Colour Out of Space.” As the color which nobody in the world has ever seen before spreads, their society is destroyed. We have met the Colour, and it is us.

No, think about it for a second.  Consider Pleasantville as a horror film:

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First off, thanks to Constant Reader Matt we have our replacement for Momfidence! (which is a good resource for the new, harried parent) as the featured sidebar book: How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion.  I haven’t read it, but I’ve known Matt for going on decades now, and I trust him.

Also, there’s Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen.  Which I also have not read yet, but if it’s good enough for Ken Hite, it’s good enough for me.